Order of Shalott (CTD)
The Order of Shalott is a Romantic Society of the Kithain Overview While this Order embodies many of the noblest aspects of pure love, it is, nonetheless, the most tragic of the Romanticist orders. The Order of Shalott (a poetic rather than a practical creation) personifies love unobtained. The Order of Shalott is something of a cruel joke among some fae (especially commoners) who often ridicule them as lugubrious sad-sacks. (Sad-eyed knights and weepy poets are favorite stereotypes of this order.) It often seems that members of this order are doomed to forever search, yet never obtain, that for which they are looking. This is because they pursue the most elusive state of all — true love. Despite the caustic humor hurled their way, many fae are, in fact, jealous of the depth of their emotion. Many of this order never find what they are searching for. Some become cynical or end up as Cerenaics. Others pine away completely, becoming Bean sidhe. Those who do ultimately obtain their goal, however, are like shining stars in a world grown dark and cold. Red Branch Knights are often of this bent. Lost Shalott It is widely thought that the most learned of House Eiluned were among those who proposed the notion of fortified freeholds, where they and their companions might remain near to the world of mortals, yet safe from Banality. House members believed in their hearts that the tide of Banality might be turned and that the world could return to a second "Golden Age." Sadly, wishes for the future clouded their vision and their scrying had shown them only what they wanted to see. So they constructed freeholds, whose walls they hoped would shield them from Banality's chill. If the tales are to be given credence, many of these freeholds were torn from their moorings in the mortal world by the Shattering and now exist as islands, albeit intact, in the Near Dreaming. It is believed trods are in some of these islands, though the ways there and back are seldom the same. Other freeholds of this period failed, collapsing spectacularly under the increasing weight of Banality in one final conflagration of Glamour. Still others faded slowly. But a scant few survived and they remain some of the most potent freeholds in the world to this day. One such freehold still stands in Glastonia, Kingdom of Mist, England, in sight of the fabled Tor of Avalon. One freehold that did not survive is stipulated by scholars to have been the basis for tales of "Shalott"; an enchanted tower whose inhabitants were cursed to know the mortal world only through visions of it that appeared in a magical tapestry. Although it is impossible to know with any certainty where this tower once stood in the mortal world, many say it was in the Brocilande Fôret in Brittany, France. Those who left the shelter of the tower, which some claim survived the Shattering and existed for several hundred years afterward, died after a few hours, struck down by the "curse" of Banality. It is also rumored that a band of wilders claiming allegiance to the Order of Shalott have made it their quest to discover the remains of this freehold. References # CTD. Nobles: The Shining Host, p. 65. # CTD. Noblesse Oblige: The Book of Houses, pp. 38-39. Category:Romantic Societies (CTD)